SOYUZMULTFILM
A TRUE POMOR STORY
Based on Boris Shergin's story "For Mirth"
Screenplay: Yuriy Koval, Leonid Nosyrev Director: Leonid Nosyrev
Art Director: Vera Kudryavtseva Composer: Yevgeniy Botyarov
Camera: Aleksandr Chehovskiy Sound: Boris Filchikov
Montage: Olga Vasilenko Ass. Director: Tatyana Galkina
Animators: Anatoliy Abarenov, Aleksey Bukin, Yelena Malashenkova
Voices: Yevgeniy Leonov, Zinaida Popova
Backgrounds: V. Haritonova, I. Kuzmina, L. Biryukova, N. Alferova, S. Mashkova
Script Editor: N. Abramova Production Director: L. Butyrina
An edict is laid down.
All who sail in these regions of the ocean-sea...
Remember the brothers Ivan and Andrian.
Following the example of their ancestors,
Ivan and Andrian had taken up sea fishing.
In their younger years they had worked in the shipyards of Arkhangelsk,
carving wood.
At the end of August, Ivan and Andrian,
like loons, journeyed onto their own little island
where they lived for several days.
Such is the fisherman's dole in life:
the floor is wet, but the stomach is full.
And so,
they finished their bread,
and drank their water.
They left some water for the morning's journey, to sail to the mainland.
A tragedy took place.
Horrible,
irreversible.
Ivan and Andrian reasoned like this:
"We're not the first, we're not the last.
If the world loses another two tradesmen,
from this the wide world will not change.
According to tradition, they had to leave an epitaph
Of who they are, the deceased
and where they are from.
Oh woe, woe, my child
my Pomor son
you went away like a ship
white-sailed
like a seagull
white-winged
like a spruce tree
supple
like a willow
in the spring
oh woe, woe my child
my Pomor son
the white-sailed ship has gone beyond the sea
the gull has flown past the blue horizon
and the spruce tree lies felled
the willow has been deflowered
oh woe, woe my child
my Pomor son
My brood has flown away
and left me to live in grief
from tedium and weariness
from great misfortune
where will I walk?
where will I go?
I'll walk along a field
I'll watch the unclouded sky
two geese are flying
two songsters are flying
I will ask the two geese
I will ask the grey ones
are you not my sons?
are you not blood-brothers?
There are no tears to match a mother's,
There is no lament to match a widow's,
Andrian, the younger brother, lived on the island for six weeks.
The day of his death was marked by Ivan on the back of the memorial board.
The time when Ivan put down his artist's arms
is not written down in our human script.
The shipwrights, Ivan and Andrian, here ended their earthly labours
and collapsed into the long rest and wait for the archangel's horn.
To distract our minds from timeless boredom
to this whole board we applied our determined hands.
Andrian graced this frame with carvings for mirth,
Ivan wrote the chronicle for disclosing
that we are of Lichutin kin, Mezen townsmen.
And remember us, all who sail past these parts of the ocean-sea.
Death not all will take,
only its own will it take.
THE END © Soyuzmultfilm, 1987 (trans. - Niffiwan, timings - wero1000)